On February 15, Justice Sabita Singh of Massachusetts’ Appeals Court granted a temporary restraining order against the city of Boston’s employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The order applies to members of the Boston Firefighters Union Local 718, the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society. This ruling will apply until the unions’ lawsuit is completed. Justice Singh’s February 15 opinion says out front that she is reversing the lower trial court’s decision which denied a restraining order against the city’s vaccine mandate and is now entering a preliminary injunction stopping the city’s vaccine mandate as to those folks represented by the three unions.

City and Unions Had Agreed on Vaccinate-or-Test Rule

Singh then offers a short history of the facts and law preceding the ruling. In March 2020, the Massachusetts Governor declared a COVID-19 state of emergency. This emergency was ended on June 15, 2021. Then on August 12, Boston issued a vaccine verification policy that required all city workers to get vaccinated or submit a weekly COVID-19 test. Then, on October 7 and December 7 the city signed off on Memorandums of Agreements (MOAs) with two of the unions; these deals allowed the testing option to remain available to city workers.

Mayor Unilaterally Changes Rules

Despite its MOAs, on December 20, 2021 the city announced that it was eliminating the testing option, and that workers who won’t take the vaccine will face progressive discipline up to getting fired. On January 3, 2022, the unions filed a lawsuit in Superior Court for breach of contract. The complaint alleged that the vaccine mandate violated both the MOA’s the city had entered and general collective bargaining law. On January 14, the superior court denied the unions’ request for an injunction, and the unions then appealed. Even the judge who first denied the union’s motion for a halt to the mandate noted that, “[a]ssuming, arguendo, that the City was permitted to unilaterally impose a vaccine mandate on the plaintiff union employees, it unequivocally has an obligation under” state law to engage in good faith collective bargaining over the mandate.

You Can’t Undo a Vaccination

Singh also found that without relief, the workers faced irreparable harm in that folks who are forced to take a shot cannot be unvaccinated after the fact, and folks who won’t take the shot will lose their jobs. And while the latter is not always an “irreparable injury” under the law, Singh held that in extraordinary cases such a threatened injury can support an injunction. The justice said that termination for refusal of a unilateral policy that both implicates bodily integrity and self-determination, and also negates union agreements, is in fact an extraordinary situation. The justice also decided that harm to the public interest and the city from siding with the workers did not outweigh said workers’ rights.

Justice Opines that Union Rights Trump Speculative Risk

Only about 450 workers in the three unions are unvaccinated, and under Singh’s ruling they are returned to the prior test-or-vaccinate status quo. With these small numbers and a testing requirement, the justice found that there was not much risk to the public from putting the mandate on hold. And the injunction also is in the public interest based on union rights in Massachusetts, which are key for, “fair working arrangements and the orderly provision of societal services.” Last, if the mandate is imposed, many essential workers may quit, another harm to the public which the injunction prevents.

A Win for the Citizens of Boston

In a statement on their Facebook page, the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation notes that they are “thrilled” about the ruling. They say that they are not anti-vaccination and that the court order, “is a chance to hold our elected leaders accountable while protecting our member’s labor rights.” They also noted that the, “decision by Justice Singh demonstrates that when one puts away the far-fetched rhetoric and the social media soundbites, the law and the facts are on our side. This is not just a win for our members, this is a win for public safety and the citizens of Boston as a whole.”